I am writing to you from Anchorage Alaska tonight, before I head to the airport to catch a midnight Red-Eye flight back to Colorado. My week here in Alaska has been a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experience, but to Alaska residents it is just a part of life here to encounter bears and moose, and wake up surrounded by snowy peaks. It snowed the day before I arrived, and cold windy weather was predicted, but we were incredibly fortunate to have blue skies and warm (42 degree) weather while in Katmai National Park.
I am not quite ready to start sharing photos and videos, since I just have my laptop on this trip. Once I get home to my big computer setup, I will start to go through my thousands of photos to share images with you. However I was able to put together this “Postcard from Katmai” from our in-stock fabrics. Everything you see here is something I encountered on this trip!
The highlight of this trip which was focusing on Brown Bears, was a day in a remote valley with about 30-40 bears on the river. We flew in on a float plane in the morning, hung out on shallow islands and river banks all day wearing overall rubber waders, then the float plane came back at the end of the day and picked us up again. We were surrounded by bears the whole time. Because it is the salmon run season, the bears ignored us and were just gorging on 90,000 calories of salmon the whole time, so they were totally uninterested in the humans.
Because we had a biologist as our tour guide (who has studied bear behavior his whole adult life) we were safe, and in fact we had some extraordinary close-up experiences with his guidance. In case you didn’t see my previous newsletter about this, Coastal Brown Bears are the larger version of the Grizzly Bear. Because they are so well fed, they are not grumpy and aggressive like the Grizzlies. You still have to be careful, but this time of year it is normal to see fisherman and bears in the same river.
The other highlight of this trip was being able to spend time with local QUILTERS! I now have my booster shot in the rear view mirror, and everyone in the group was vaccinated as well, so it was a huge relief to safely spend time with the quilting tribe and share our love of fabric and sewing. My lecture has been postponed due to Covid, and I’ll be giving an online presentation in the near future for the Anchorage Quilt Guild. Many thanks to my fun quilter hosts during this visit!
In case you haven’t heard, the winners of the Houston Intl Quilt Festival have been announced! Congratulations to ALL the talented artists who won awards, and a special congrats to Kestrel Michaud whose quilt won the eQuilter $5000 Master Award for Contemporary Art. Click through the link – you will really enjoy looking at all of these masterpieces.
…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul
Quilt/Lecture Calendar:
Nov 13 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” – Visions Art Museum
Dec 4 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” – Quilt Canada
Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit
Sat, April 9 – “International Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM
